“Every school advocates for their own desires,” McGarity said. “You get in a room and if there are certain things you want to discuss about moving or changing, there are 14 athletic directors that do that. Everybody advocates for their own. The one thing we don’t do is talk about those conversations. We follow SEC protocol, which is to talk about it in the room when you’re developing schedules.

“There are things we advocate for that nobody ever really knows about. That’s the purpose of going through that exercise. You don’t talk about in public what we talk to the Commissioner (Greg Sankey) and Mark Womack about regarding scheduling. There have been several times they’ve helped us with things that are important to our football coaches.”

This, of course, is fucking laughable. Schools advocate publicly for scheduling changes all the time. That’s what Auburn did in this precise case. LSU’s Joe Alleva has bitched and moaned for years about his school’s cross-division rivalry with Florida, culminating in an ugly public spat when a hurricane disrupted the timing of their game one season.

McGarity is trying to sell the nobility of his silence as a means of avoiding having to explain to us why he accommodated Auburn’s wishes without apparently receiving anything in return. As far as the fan base’s unhappiness with being kept in the dark about making a change to a long-standing tradition goes, well, that’s on us. All Greg has for us is the back of his hand.

McGarity took umbrage with the notion that he had not advocated on behalf of UGA and that this move was orchestrated by Auburn with only its concerns in mind.

31 responses to “The Auburn decision: McGarity’s call”

It’s not that McGarity didn’t advocate the we get two home games from Auburn to make up for the back to back home games we gave Auburn a few years ago. I feel certain he mentioned it. It’s just that he is so weak he got completely run over. McGarity needs to go ASAP. He’s a net loss for for the university and our football program. The Charlie Weiss of ADs.

What a constant disappointment he has been. Not one decision other than Kirby has worked out. Well, maybe the track coach as well! He’s dang good. The Kupets/Yoculan tandem seems to be moving us back in the right direction in an incredibly competitive situation as well. Kudos for thinking outside the box there.

But as has been said, his ability to foul up day to day business and insult the customer is incredible.

I think you could make an argument that the Kirby decision wasn’t even really his. I’m not any kind of insider at all, but the word on the message boards was that the boosters wanted Kirby and gave McGarity the marching orders to make it happen. And there were even rumors at the time that he was close to screwing it up. AND he hired a search firm after the fact to justify Kirby’s hiring. Dude couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat.

And if they did I’d expect McGarity to go public with that. He wouldn’t. That’s just my expectation. He has a legacy of accommodating rivals over fighting for our interests. Here’s our odd year SEC home opponents:
– South Carolina, UK, Mizzou, SEC West rotator

Our administration just blew a major chance to improve that by putting Auburn back in the spot they belong.

Why we just signed on to another year of his weak leadership I’ll never know. Unless some of those that have influence like having a weak person to influence. If this decision was unforced it was really, really, dumb. You wonder if the reason McGarity doesn’t want to talk about what goes on in “the room” is because he always loses in said negotiation?

You are correct. BM is concerned with cash flow and nothing else. The only reason they care about winning at all is that it makes it easier to charge more and makes fans more willing to donate and buy tickets. Georgia season ticket holders get exactly what they pay for and send the message to BM that they are perfectly happy with the state of athletics at the university.

I can’t wait for the next McGarity’s Minutes. We took it so hard in the shorts when the conference expanded. Auburn’s wish to move the game was the bargaining chip from heaven to get our schedule balanced out year over year.

I don’t see it on the horizon, but if our attendance / ticket sales ever drop, that would be the first thing to cause the administration to realize our odd # year home schedule blows.

If you met Greg McG in a dark alley, armed with only your thumb and forefinger in the shape of a gun, he’d still throw his wallet and watch on the ground and run before you could even finish saying “Hand it over.”

We’ve won 13 of last 18…ain’t gonna matter peeps right? 2nd. UGA now has a poker chip on Sankey…so when the time comes and we need Sankey to go to bat for us, then he should….I think he did so during Maurice Smith’s appeal right?

If you think Sankey feels any indebtedness towards Georgia or McGarity I have a bridge I’d like to sell you. McGarity is a complete pushover and Sankey knows it. Tell us the last time McGarity stood up for Georgia’s best interest and the conference backed down.